Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @09:10AM
from the of-gift-horses-and-blind-squirrels dept.

alphadogg writes "Microsoft appears to have reached an agreement with the European Commission that concludes an antitrust battle that has lasted a decade, Europe's top competition regulator said today. A proposal the company offered in July to address charges of monopoly abuse were dismissed as insufficient by the Commission, as well as by rivals in the software industry. But the latest iteration appears to have mollified the EC's regulator. 'We believe this is an answer,' said competition commissioner Neelie Kroes in a press conference. 'I think this is a trustful deal we are making. There can't be a misunderstanding because it is the final result of a long discussion between Steve Ballmer and me.' The new settlement offer addresses charges that Microsoft distorted competition in its favor in the market for web browsers, by giving its Internet Explorer browser an unfair advantage over rivals."
The Register points out this interesting quote from the materials Microsoft released on the subject: "Microsoft shall ensure that third-party software products can interoperate with Microsoft's Relevant Software Products using the same Interoperability Information on an equal footing as other Microsoft Software Products."

If this actually happens, it will be a Very Good Thing for the world in general, as Microsoft will no longer be legally able to keep changing their protocols to break access by non-Microsoft software.

Given their track record, though, I don't believe for a minute that Microsoft will actually make all the information available in a clear and usable format. More likely they'll release some information that looks nice, to show what good boys they're being, then release some more information terribly scrambled, and keep most of the information to themselves, because by that point the EU will be paying less attention to them and they'll have to take them back to court to get them to do anything more.

That is possible, if not for the fact that if they do so, not only can the EU fire the ol' AT war machine right back up (they have lots of lovely documentation from this one just lying about they could scrutinize some more...), AND Microsoft would be breaking an actual law in plain sight. After all, it doesn't have to take a Kroes to get the word out: any lawsuit in any European country that could be connected to this anti-trust legislation and the FA mentioned 'new laws' would get instant attention from Mr

The EU antitrust body is a beast with teeth, and a lot more difficult to buy out than the US equivalent. Their power comes in large part by their demonstrated ability to battle and win against even the largest multinational corporations. They will not risk losing that reputation, and their fight with MS is being watched by players outside the software industry.

I don't think they'll allow MS to play them for fools. If Balmer tries (and yes, I'm as certain as you that he will), they will smack him up fast and hard, because they know everyone they'll have to fight in the next 10 years is watching.

Currently I never attribute to incompetence alone what is their brilliant mix of incompetent malice. I place more faith in MS's ability to be evil than the patience of even the EU commission.

The EU thinks it has at least a Draw. MS will Shatnerize the Kobyashi Maru and announce it is playing some other game entirely. "Why yes, we'll support all relevant software. However, since we officially are ending support for XP on (___ date), then XP is no longer relevant, so we won't bother to make that interoperable

Well yes, yes of course they do. Because, well most of the world does, why shouldn't the we?/sarcasm

You gents over there seem to be getting a bit paranoid. I would say that a more rational explanation is that most European nations have a more sceptical view of large corporations, not sure why, but perhaps the thing about imperialism left a bitter taste. Well, and feudalism, and all the other quite nice forms of government you guys missed out on. In addition many of them have a strong social-democratic lean

No, it is not. It is an administrative body. The important difference is that it is not subject to the whims and changing tides of political climate. That's what I meant when I said it's not so easy to buy out. The US antitrust action ended very quickly when Bush Jr. was elected. A change in government will not affect the EU antitrust commission.

EU forced Microsoft to distribute browsers built by their competitors, regardless of merit or customer desire.

Cry me a river. Look, MS started the game, by forcing its users to accept their own browser, regardless of merit or customer desire.

Amazon (free shipping declared illegal at the behest of French bookstores)

Opera (a purveyor of second-tier browsers) managed to get what it couldn't earn in the market.

I think you may be being a bit deliberately thick here. That's the whole point of the EU ruling. Opera complained that it couldn't get a toe hold in the market because with Microsoft's overwhelming dominance, there wasn't a level playing field.

The EU has played this game in the past, favoring EU companies by penalizing US companies

Your attempt to provoke nationalist sentiments to rally Americans against the EU and their ruling against Microsoft is very transparent, and has been attempted on several other occasions here on Slashdot. It won't work. In the case of Microsoft, these actions, rather than being thinly-veiled protectionism, are an essential attempt to balance a market that has been in a stranglehold by the dominate player Microsoft for over a decade. The other complaints you have about the EU are irrelevant to this discussion.

You probably missed the many cases where they've put three-digit-million fines on european companies. Let me guess, since those weren't american companies, they were never reported in american media. Understandable, but not very helpful in creating an unbiased picture.

"Microsoft shall ensure that third-party software products can interoperate with Microsoft's Relevant Software Products using the same Interoperability Information on an equal footing as other Microsoft Software Products."

This is similar to the terms of the US settlement from a while back. The promised to document all protocols and interfaces. So we can already see if they would live up to the new promise.

Before the US settlement they didn't publicly document all of their protocols. After the settlement they published many Word documents online, but for most you had to agree to incredibly restrictive terms to download them. IIRC they also charged money for some. And back then you had to purchase Word (or Windows and download a free Word viewer) to read the specifications.

Then, as expected, they continued to change their protocols and interfaces. So even if you did keep up with all the documents you couldn't possibly keep up with Microsoft's own interoperability.

"Microsoft shall ensure that third-party software products can interoperate with Microsoft's Relevant Software Products using the same Interoperability Information on an equal footing as other Microsoft Software Products."

This is similar to the terms of the US settlement from a while back. The promised to document all protocols and interfaces. So we can already see if they would live up to the new promise.

Well sort of. The US settlement applied only to APIs for interaction between Windows server and desktop versions and only for a limited time. A group was appointed to check on this and if MS was in non-compliance (as they have been several times) the courts had the power to keep watching them while doing nothing even longer.

The EU agreement just created a template contract for MS and a competitor to sign, where MS will agree to provide the same APIs to a competitor that it uses itself. MS, of course, gets t

According to the SAMBA team, Microsoft has actually been fairly open (both in terms of providing docs and in terms of providing info/answers/clarification) when it comes to the protocols SAMBA deals with.

According to the SAMBA team, Microsoft has actually been fairly open (both in terms of providing docs and in terms of providing info/answers/clarification) when it comes to the protocols SAMBA deals with.

Yeah and it only took what, three years after they were convicted and ordered to open up the protocols, before they complied?

Agreed. The agreement between the EU and Microsoft states that they just have to provide all the same API's publically that they use internally. There is nothing about legacy support.

It doesn't even go that far. They just drew up a "template" contract that MS can use when working with other companies that would grant them the rights to use the same APIs as some MS application, for a non-specified subset of the applications MS creates. Basically, it is a "we're not breaking this antitrust law with this product to disadvantage this competitor" contract designed to speed up civil lawsuits if MS does sign it and break it, but which will not be applied in any instances where MS has wiggle ro

'This proposed measure ensures that PC manufacturers will continue to be able to install any browser on top of Windows and make any browser the default. It also ensures that PC manufacturers and users will be able to turn Internet Explorer on and off [microsoft.com] '

And with 'search' going to be directly embedded into the applications, the 'choice' of browser is going to become moot.

But who cares? So what if the internal OS functions use IE to do internal OS stuff, like browsing folders or what have you?

If the issue is *web browser* stuff, then that should be confined to *browsing the web* - right? And if they turn off IE to *browse the web* - thus allowing FF, Chrome, or what have you - isn't that what they asked for? They're not complaining that Microsoft can't use any of it's own applications for doing stuff within it's own OS. They're complaining that about the web browsing bit

"If the issue is *web browser* stuff, then that should be confined to *browsing the web* - right?"

As I pointed out, the choice of browser is becoming moot, which is why MS is prepared to concede room to the others on their desktop. The next big-thing is with cloud applications, software as a service.. er renting the software. So it won't matter what browser you use, you still get to pay the Microsoft tax.

"Forcing Microsoft to somehow completely remove any part of their OS that can interpret HTML beca

So... I'm not sure what the point is, then? What control over your own computer are you not getting?

I agree, cloud/SaaS is the big thing, stupid or smart as it is... but I fail to see why it's an issue if Microsoft develops their cloud/software that they charge for the usage of it. As long as they don't charge me for using it when I install Windows and as long as I am able to use a different one, then... ? I don't have a problem with them putting hooks into their OS that make it easy to hook into some o

And with 'search' going to be directly embedded into the applications, the 'choice' of browser is going to become moot.

Not necessarily, if you can replace the IE Active-X components that Windows apps use by another dll -- e.g. http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm [www.iol.ie].I doubt though that Mozilla will pull themselves together to release such a DLL, Google/Opera seem more likely (to me).

Either way, I read the 'Register'-quote from the summary as exactly that: Search has to be replaceable with other browsers. Another way is to always call the browser, and not use in-application results.

Unless they try to use MSN Messenger. I locked down my activex and scripting functionality for IE, and installed a Javascript debugger. I get no end to the messages from MSN Messenger, because it is trying to run some script, or display some active x control, or run some buggy javascript, because it's trying to use IE to do so.

'I think this is a trustful deal we are making. There can't be a misunderstanding because it is the final result of a long discussion between Steve Ballmer and me.'

"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine [...] We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again." --Neville Chamberlain, September 1938.

what did you expect? Someone talks about an agreement with Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, or Microsoft and the similarities of deception, double-speak, blind followers, and wrong doings just pour out on the floor. El Diablo quite often gets brought up too but Goodwin's got the rule.That was darn quick though, and could be a record for application of Goodwin's Law. What is the shortest thread length which was applicable? It took only the 4th comment in this case but this is/. and Mr ( El Diable ) Ballmer is wel

This only affects the browser market where Microsoft is steadily losing ground anyway. The fact of the matter is that the operating system itself is still untouched and Microsoft still has no penalty for pulling more and more functionality into the OS itself.

The problem has never been just browsers or messaging utilities or office suites or default home pages. It is about how Microsoft uses its monopoly power on the desktop to stifle competitors. This could have been handled years ago except the American judge couldn't stay awake long enough to do anything but parrot the prosecuting attorney's notes.

MS should have been broken into an OS company and an apps company long ago. But it didn't happen, and we're all still the worse off for it. Trying to change anything by half-assed measures like forcing the user to choose a browser is just not going to work.

This only affects the browser market where Microsoft is steadily losing ground anyway. The fact of the matter is that the operating system itself is still untouched and Microsoft still has no penalty for pulling more and more functionality into the OS itself.

What functionality has Microsoft "pulled into the OS" that was not in direct response to either a) customer demands or b) a competitor doing it first ?

MS should have been broken into an OS company and an apps company long ago. But it didn't happen,

Microsoft almost certainly has wholly owned subsidiaries incorporated in most countries. For example there is a "Microsoft UK Ltd". Microsoft has large teams in Dublin and various other places in Europe (e.g. aren't some of Dynamics packages written in Denmark?).

right, that's why Microsoft had to go out and purchase Netscape contracts ISP's had and then pay those ISP's to ship Internet Explorer and when the browser was not purposefully scattered throughout the OS's DLL's, they use threats and coercion to get hardware OEM's to load Internet Explorer instead of Netscape Navigator.anti-trust laws are to protect businesses from monsters like Microsoft who leverage their position to block other companies from new markets.

Microsoft's ActiveSync is already on 50 million and growing Apple devices, the Palm Pre and Google has licensed it for it's online sync service. IE is old news and MS doesn't seem to care about it anymore. Now MS owns the technology that transfers documents and email over the internet between devices.

Was there something in the OEM licenses that prevented PC vendors from installing 3rd-party browsers? The "settlement" spends a lot of time talking about the ballot screen for selecting browsers. But I'm not sure why another vendor could not have made their own ballot screen if they wanted. Or just install whatever browser they like.

Was there something in the OEM licenses that prevented PC vendors from installing 3rd-party browsers? The "settlement" spends a lot of time talking about the ballot screen for selecting browsers. But I'm not sure why another vendor could not have made their own ballot screen if they wanted. Or just install whatever browser they like.

In the past there were but that is no longer necessary. The EU did poll OEMs and ask if they were being pressured by MS before they implemented this solution. Do OEMs feel they will be discriminated against in bulk licensing if they make a different browser the default or offer their own ballot? The results of this poll were not made public, but we can infer the response based upon the EU's solution. However, even if MS does nothing at this point market forces resulting from their previous abuses will push OEMs to install IE as the default browser. This is because MS's intentional breaking of standards ala the famous "embrace, extent, extinguish" memos have resulted in a significant number of Web pages that only function properly in IE. Further, previous findings of fact in other jurisdictions have concluded this was intentional and not an accidental result of MS's actions. As a result, the state of the Web itself motivates OEMs to make IE the default and that state is the result of previous crimes.

The EU chose to make the ballot the default to minimize MS's ability to retaliate against OEMs. Until Web standards become the norm, however, any remedy from the EU will be only partially effective in restoring real competition and allowing that competition to drive innovation as it would in a capitalist, competitive free market.

<b>'I think this is a trustful deal we are making. There can't be a misunderstanding because it is the final result of a long discussion between Steve Ballmer and me.'<b><br><p>

This sentence sent the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. How many times have we seen people, companies, legal systems make agreements with Microsoft only to find out that what Microsoft decided the meaning meant was completely different from what the other parties, and common sense, believed the agreement meant? The Novell / Microsoft agreement of recent which was made public the day after the signing of the agreement. Microsoft said it was about patents and Novell said it was about interoperability. To top if off, Novell people said that the patent stuff was thrown in at the 11th hour so you know this bait and switch was planned from the start at One Microsoft Way( FYI, that's the name of the street their headquarters are on ).

Good to see others are feeling the same way about this too. This does go to show yet again that legal systems are not going to protect the public from Microsoft's attack on small startup businesses, new ideas and... wait for it.... innovation. A decade of playing cat and mouse with Microsoft? Even SCO is still around so forget about the legal systems doing a thing to change Microsoft's way of doing business.

The regulator is not naive. He knows he's rubberstamping, and giving a lame excuse.

If I were debugging a program and I said:

'I think this is a trustful design change we are making. There can't be a design fault because it is the final result of a long debugging session between the application and me.'

You would probably think I was crocked in the head. Long sessions usually indicate deep faults, not easy design fixes. Long negotiations don't suddenly become "trustful" just because the two parties couldn't

Sorry, but it's not a monopoly as long as I can buy one of these [apple.com], one of these [sun.com], or even one of these [dell.com].

Believe it or not, the world does not revolve around you. The end user is not the one with no power in MS's antitrust issues here. The question is, "can Dell license OS X for inclusion on their computer systems aimed at the home and corporate markets? Can Dell install Solaris or Ubuntu replacing Windows on the systems they ship, without going out of business? No they can't, except for a few niche markets, so MS has them over a barrel. That isn't even illegal, but screwing over other markets by using the fac

Dell has been selling redhat on their business computers for a few years now. I would like to see more choices for the home line. The end user IS the one with no power. The end user does not decide which computers dell, hp, or anyone else sells. Those companies do. Unless that company sells no computers and all their research points to the os as the reason, nothing will change. Remember that if you buy a dell computer and have issues with it who do you call first? Most non computer people call dell first.

Dell has been selling redhat on their business computers for a few years now.

Sure, for a very small, niche segment of their business customers. They cannot, however, replace Windows as the OS component on all their business PC's the way they can replace the soundcard component in all their business PC's, because if they do they will go out of business.

The end user IS the one with no power.

Not as a direct result of MS's market influence. MS sells Windows primarily to OEMs and enterprises. They sell very few boxed copies to end users. OEMs and site licensees define the market and are the ones who MS has huge influence ove

The only problems is lack of choice of hardware and paying a premium for another OS:

Not at all. Even if every computer Dell sold and every other OEM sold came with the option of Windows or Linux, that does nothing to lessen MS's power over Dell unless Windows actually lost market share significantly as a result. Until they lose the ability to leverage their large market share into other markets, they need to be effectively stopped by the courts from doing so. I favor doing this by directly eliminating their monopoly, but the EU will never do so for diplomatic reasons.

I think you'll find it's the customers who have Dell over a barrel. They would be the ones who dictate whether or not the computers Dell sells will be bought.

Sellers are always directly accountable to purchasers and this is normal and beneficial to the operation of a competitive market. The problem with monopolies is they break that. Dell as a purchaser should have the power over MS. If M meets their needs Dell buys from them. If not, Dell buys from a competitor. Except in this case Dell has no other realistic options for the mainstream because of lock-in to Windows. As a result, regardless of if MS does what their customers want, the customers still buy from MS

For example, if MS makes them pay for the cost of developing Internet Explorer and bundles that cost into the cost of Windows, when there was a preexisting market for web browsers, [...]

The primary tenuous assumption here being that there was ever a distinct market for web browsers.

That's not even slightly tenuous when you understand how the law defines markets. There does not have to be direct sales, just profit. Mozilla makes money today by creating a web browser.

The second being that the price of Windows would have changed if it didn't have IE.

Which is not something that is necessary or even needs to be proved to hold up in court. Unless the developers working on IE do so out of charity, it assumed a bundled costs by the courts otherwise it would always be impossible to prove such violations. Just because you call something "free" in marketing does not mean econ

Yeah, now if only you understood why we have antitrust laws you might reconsider that opinion.

I imagine you'd have trouble finding a single feature added to Windows since its invention, that didn't exist in some piece of independent software beforehand.

That's irrelevant. For the third time "Pre-existing separate markets".

That, in essence, you're arguing Windows cannot exist in both a useful and antitrust-compliant fashion, should hopefully highlight the foolishness of it.

It absolutely can, they just need to structure themselves with compliance with the law in mind. But hey, if you think it's impossible, that's fine because an MS that has had their monopoly power removed by being split up is the best possible thing for innovation and competition. By all means, let's assume it is impossible MS will ever be able to

just because the PC market revolves around Windows does not mean that the dell, gateway and other companies have a right to use the power of the government to tell microsoft what they can or cant do with there OS.

No it means the government can tell Microsoft what they can and can't do with their OS. Microsoft is a corporation, remember? They're a legal entity that exists because the government dreamed up such a thing and even if they weren't the government has the power to pass laws that regulate interstate commerce. Remember we the people are in charge and our democracy created these laws to stop the robber barons and trusts that were causing great harm. So we wrote laws and everyone has to obey them because it is

I was told repeatedly, on slashdot and elsewhere, that offering a choice could never work. The script was to complicated, among other things. You can't download anything until the browser is installed, among other things. That Microsoft couldn't offer browsers which they didn't own, among other things.

After all those highly intelligent individuals convinced me that this browser ballot was impossible, I KNOW it has to be fake! Those screenshots are photoshopped, it's all a figment of some demented Euro's imagination!!

NURSE!! I need another pill, please!

Ahh, to hell with the pill. Screw all the astroturfers who spent all their time with wasted arguements.

don't forget the bias. Studies and studies and studies have been done which show that placement is important, and having IE in the middle here creates a bias. Basically people will just click center very commonly.

There is a better way, one which is used when conducting multiple-choice electronic surveys all the time: display them in a random order. Each vendor will then be in the optimal position for selection-without-thinking an equal number of times.

There are many ways to download things off the internet without a browser. Take FTP for example. or iTunes. Neither is what I would call a browser. Sure iTunes has some browser aspects, but it isn't a browser. It wouldn't take much for MS to program an app that would be able to download the browser of your choice over the internet. Also, you state that "That Microsoft couldn't offer browsers which they didn't own", which is true, but you forgot a few words. Those words are "without the permission of the

No really. I think that all legal action against Microsoft should be created using only Linux and open source software. If there are really viable alternatives to Microsoft for the vast majority of home and small business users then there should be no problem for the governments, law firms and every other MS hater to divorce themselves of Microsoft products.

I imagine it'd be doable for Linux, but even if I'm wrong there, I'd suggest it's perfectly possible on OSX.

"The issue isn't unfair competition. Its the failure to understand that the free market has chosen Microsoft...because no has a more compelling offering for the vast majority of people."

In operating systems, you are correct. Aside from some licensing shenanigans with PC manufacturers, MS came to dominates OS's the same way Google came to dominate search - people chose it more than the competition.

Actually, no. They became the dominant OS because IBM used MS' OS for its PC and XT. In business, "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" so IBM's PCs became dominant. By the time Compaq cloned an IBM, DOS was the standard office OS, and hardware manufacturers used MS's OS because then their machine would be "IBM compatible".

People used MS' OSes at home because 1) that's what they had a work and 2) that's what came pre-installed on their computer.

If the CP/M guy hadn't missed that meeting, and Billl Gates' parents weren't both lawyers who worked for Microsoft, chances are your PC wouldn't be running Windows now. Microsoft owes everything to IBM.

OK, so they are dominant in one area - the desktop OS market. Now which competitors have they eliminated and what specific MS actions caused that elimination?

The previous poster said they eliminated competition, not competitors. It's the same as eliminating competition by sabotaging a rival athlete's car so they can't get to the track meet or cutting their hamstring or rubbing grease on their shoes. You don't actually have to kill the rival in order to eliminate competition.

MS has dominance in the desktop OS market as you said. They have used that to gain an advantage in the web browser, media jukebox software, server OS, and several other markets. The method th

Nice attempt to deflect based on the idea that I'm not qualified to speak.

What are you talking about? I asked you to make sure you actually understand the concepts of a topic before commenting on it, so I don't have to repeat for the hundredth time an explanation of how antitrust law works and why it exists. Why people feel they should express their opinion without being informed on this topic, when they would not do so on geophysics or Perl is beyond me.

"gaining an advantage" against a competing product is quite different than "eliminating" one.

Yes it is. But since both are detrimental and both are illegal if you're leveraging an existing monopoly to do it, your comment

You state that MS was "convicted" (your expertise is slipping) of leveraging their desktop OS to gain an advantage in the server OS space but you don't provide any evidence that indeed they did.

What you slept through the dozens of Slashdot articles and major news outlet coverage of the previous EU antitrust trial. Yes they were CONVICTED as antitrust law is criminal law in the US and EU. â497 million, the largest fine they'd ever handed out when MS stalled on complying with the order for years.

I think you're confused. As I've pointed out numerous times on Slashdot and the media has pointed out in just about any article about the US Antitrust case against MS it was a civil proceeding, not a criminal one and thus MS wasn't "convicted" of anything.

The European Commission is not a court, it the EU's executive branch that makes EU policy. The fines levied against MS are a matter of policy, not law.

I think you're confused. As I've pointed out numerous times on Slashdot and the media has pointed out in just about any article about the US Antitrust case against MS it was a civil proceeding, not a criminal one and thus MS wasn't "convicted" of anything.

You're mistaken. The Clayton and Sherman acts are both criminal law. You're confused because most antitrust cases begin as civil suits, but are then taken over by the Department of Justice. The DoJ does not sue anyone, they prosecute them.

The European Commission is not a court, it the EU's executive branch that makes EU policy. The fines levied against MS are a matter of policy, not law.

It's true the EC is not a court. They are an executive body just like the DoJ is. They work things slightly differently in that the EC can levy fines directly, but those the fines are levied against can go to the court to contest them if they want to make a trial out of it

"I think you're confused. As I've pointed out numerous times on Slashdot and the media has pointed out in just about any article about the US Antitrust case against MS it was a civil proceeding, not a criminal one and thus MS wasn't "convicted" of anything."

Nice try. While the proceedings were in a civil court, that does NOT mean that they did not violate the law. They were found to have violated United States anti-trust law and a judgement, including penalties, was granted. While the specific penalties

"United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states."

The difference between civil and criminal proceedings is very important. A criminal proceeding requires a much higher standard of proof than does a civil action. It's unlikely that MS would have been found guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" which would have been

Oh, and to answer your question directly: Netscape, Word Perfect, and Digital Research. The first and the third WON court cases based on the evidence that Microsoft violated anti-trust law. I'm not sure about Word Perfect, but I believe there may have been a judgment in that as well.

The DR-DOS case should be ESPECIALLY familiar to a low ID guy like yourself, since the case and its aftermath, including the SCO debacle, have been chronicled here for years.

You've raised an interesting point there. OOo is changing their behaviour to be more compatible with Excel - in that text cells containing values that can be interpreted as numbers can be used in calculations - and this is one of the key reasons (or excuses) why Microsoft put their formulae into a different namespace. I wonder if they will change that when the OOo change is released, and what excuse they will use if they don't.

Different rules apply when you are ruled to be an abusive monopoly. When/if others out there in the market get big enough to cause harm to others by breaking standards and using means and methods that others cannot, you can expect similar responses. Market regulators (which are absolutely essential to maintaining the health of the market) say quite clearly that one should not leverage your monopoly position in one market to gain monopolies in other markets especially when it harms other players existing i

Microsoft should be forced to halt any further support for non-standards compliant browsers and should not be allowed to create extensions and addons that could be further used to damage compatibility with W3C standards.

I get your point, but an absolute ban goes too far. For example, if Microsoft wanted to implement Firefox's "layerX" and "layerY" JavaScript elements for compatability, they would not be allowed to because that is a non-standard extension of JavaScript? Or, if JavaScript is a bad example, how about the Blink element? Firefox supports it, but should Microsoft be banned from doing so?

You seem to be confusing HTTP and HTML. Aside from the ugly hack between IE and IIS a few years back where it skipped parts of the TCP handshake, IE conforms to the relevant HTTP standards. If it didn't, you wouldn't be able to get files from Apache with IE. HTTP is used to transfer a lot of things that are not web pages. The protocol identifier in the URL is exactly that; a protocol identifier. It does not identify the payload, nor what will be done with the payload.

Yeah, because when I'm being protectionist I implement policies that promote four US companies in addition to one european one that isn't a member state of the European Union I work for. I further take care to word the decision such that if that one european competitor slips just a bit in market share they are removed entirely from the solution. Also, just to cover my tracks, spend a decade convicting european companies of antitrust violations on a regular basis and handing out big fines and remedies to the

That blurs the issue. Opera is getting a free thing. Whether or not other browsers are getting it, doesn't matter. Opera filed the legal complaint, and they are getting free ads for doing so.

Yes, as part of the punishment imposed upon MS for breaking the law in a way that hurts Opera. I suppose you object to companies that commit fraud being forced to pay reparations to their victims after they are convicted too? And companies that commit libel being forced to issue a formal retraction as part of their punishment after being convicted?